Weird and Wacky Exhibitions

The Tate Modern is bringing back an interactive sculpture that sent audiences
mad in 1971. Here are some other past weird and wacky exhibitions.

Jessica Shankleman

4:01PM BST 17 Apr 2009

Martin Creed - Work No. 850, Tate Britain 2008

Martin Creed’s work asked people to sprint for their lives for 30 seconds through a gallery, followed by a thirty second pause. It aimed to celebrate the beauty of human movement, but some critics said it was a daft and pointless display of indoor jogging.

Daniel Edwards - The Iraq Memorial, Trafalgar Hotel, 2007

New York artist Daniel Edwards’s "The Iraq Memorial" is a bronze casting of Prince Harry lying as a soldier killed in Iraq. Mr Edwards said he was inspired by the Prince's willingness to serve in Iraq and was not suggesting anything the public wasn't already imagining, but some people found it tasteless.

Earlier that same year Mr Edwards displayed Paris Hilton Autopsy at Capla Kesting Fine Art in New York. The tiara-wearing autopsied Paris Hiton with removable innards was designed to warn teenagers of the perils of underage drinking and driving.

Carsten Höller’s hugely popular sculpture was made up of three different slides up to 52ft high that visitors could hurtle down at 30mph.

Höller said Test Site was a playground for the body and mind to help combat stress and depression. But there were safety issues when one woman broke her hand on one of the slides.

Cosimo Cavallaro – My Sweet Lord, The Lab Gallery, 2007

The Lab Gallery in New York was forced to close down a Holy Week exhibition of a nude 6ft chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ.

Catholic and Christian groups inundated the gallery with angry phone calls and emails including a death threat to Mr Cavallaro.

François Delarozière – La Machine, Liverpool, 2008

François Delarozière designed a giant robotic spider, nicknamed La Princesse which was commissioned by the UK’s Artichoke theatre company. A celebration of Liverpool as Capital of Culture 2008, the 37-tonne monster clung to the outer wall of Liverpool Lime Street Station before descending into the city, where it walked the streets accompanied by musicians. Not for agoraphobics.

Franco B, Oh Lover Boy, Custard Factory, Birmingham, 2001

Performance artist Franco B is famous for cutting himself in the name of art. In Oh Lover Boy, he lay naked on a titled platform in a room smelling of TCP as blood poured from the veins in his arms onto a canvas. Unsurprisingly, nine people fainted and protesters accused him self-harming rather than art making. But fans describe his art as unshackled liberation.

Marcel Duchamp, Fountain, 1917

Marcel Duchamp bought a standard white men’s urinal and signed it “R.Mutt 1917”. The piece was part of his readymade collection as it was a regular piece of furniture, which was only art because he said so. He was a member of the Dada movement which aimed to challenge the traditional values of art.

Fountain shocked audiences when it was first displayed and people were shocked again in 2004 when critics voted it the most influential modern artwork of all time, beating Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse to the top spot.

Sublah International Museum of Toilets, New Dehli

Sublah International Museum of Toilets in New Dehli was founded by toilet-obsessed Dr Bindeshwar Pathak. It traces the evolution of toilets with real life models and a thorough website. He aims to educate people about the history of the design of toilets, but also about the importance of the world-wide sanitation problems.

Eduardo Kac, GFP Bunny, School of the Art Institute Chicago, 2000

Professor Eduardo Kac sparked international debate when he genetically altered a rabbit to make it green and glowing. GFP Bunny was created when a fertilized egg of an albino rabbit was injected with a green fluorescent protein gene that came from jellyfish.

Animal activists and religious groups said his work was unethical but Kac said that was the whole point. He wanted to stir up a public debate around biotechnology because molecular biologists were hiding their work and pretending it did not have a social impact.

Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty, 1970, Great Salt Lake, Utah

Robert Smithson’s iconic earthwork in the Great Salt Lake in Utah is a 1500ft long, 15ft wide coil made from salt rock and earth on the site.

Last year, a Canadian oil company applied to drill boreholes through it, but the application was strongly opposed and ultimately rejected. It is seen as the most iconic example of land art in the world today.